“In the days when Glasto was an alternative festival it was quite interesting.

“Now it’s the most bourgeois thing on the planet. Anywhere Gwyneth Paltrow goes and you can live in an air-conditioned yurt is not for me.”

The band isn’t impressed by the perceived favouritism and exposure certain mainstream festivals get over others.

“The fact that the BBC sends thousands to film it, whereas they can’t be a***d to turn up to Sonisphere or Download with a camper van and a hand-held says it all to me,” said Bruce.

“We’ll leave the middle classes to do Glastonbury and the rest of the great unwashed will decamp to Knebworth and drink lot of beer and have fun.”
Fun is guaranteed with pilot Bruce planning a special air display before Maiden’s set.

“I had a crazy idea,” the 55-year-old grinned devilishly.

“The last time we did a festival here a Spitfire came out low over the crowd unannounced doing low passes, and the whole place was gobsmacked.

“This year I got involved with the Great War flying display group because I’m the proud owner of a Fokker triplane, which means I get to fly as one of the baddies as it were.

“I just thought why don’t we have a flying display at Sonisphere because it’s the anniversary of the Great War and because we got previous on this. “We did a song called Paschendale about the slaughter in the trenches. I thought it could be an extraordinary moment, the air full of vintage 1917 aircraft.

“I’ll be dogfighting for 15 minutes. There’s not many events where you can point to the air and say that’s the singer.”

Maiden fans will be able to consume the band’s work on a whole new level too as their very own beer Trooper is the official Sonisphere ale.

“There will be a Trooper field party,” Bruce promised.

“We have a quarter of a million pints to get people through for the show.”

The band’s own beer has been a runaway success and inspired countless other acts from Elbow to Madness to get in on the brewing business.

With infectious enthusiasm Bruce reflected: “We sold five million in the first year. It’s going on for the most successful launch of a British beer ever.

“Of those five million, two and half have been export, so we are doing our bit for the econ­omy. It started out with somebody wanting us to do a red wine.

“I said: ‘Don’t be daft. Iron Maiden red wine? You must be joking.’ It’s nice to drink but we’re an English band so we should be doing English beer.

“So because we don’t do things by halves, we made sure we designed our own, tasted it and came up with something unique. It was enjoyable, and you spend afternoons with the master brewer drinking beer.”

And of course, there will be loud music to boot as well as mainstay Eddie the Head, their mascot.

“Knebworth is one of those hallowed grounds for bands like us,” Maiden’s ringmaster cackled.

“It’s the last show of our Maiden England tour so it will be a great big party. We’ll throw in a few surprises.